


the storm and the shore

by venndaai



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emma Lives, F/F, Season/Series 07, Species Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 23:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3466691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She's mine," Dean said five minutes ago, shivering on her doorstep, and Anna blinked and took in the girl's frightened eyes, eyes a much darker green than Dean's, almost black, but the soft curves of her face are all her father's, and now for a moment there's this weird fantasy in Anna's head, her and Dean looking out for this girl together, teaching her how to be monster and human at the same time- Anna getting to be a mother again-</p>
            </blockquote>





	the storm and the shore

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty weird little thing set in a huge species-swap au that I'll probably never write. In this universe, Ruby is the angel who rescued Dean from Hell, Anna is a genuinely reformed demon, and- though it doesn't come up in this fic- Castiel is a fallen angel.

 

Dean's daughter is tall and silent. She doesn't say a word, not when Anna hands her a pile of clothes she thinks have the best chance of fitting, not when Anna hands her a comb and apologizes for the lack of a spare toothbrush. At last Anna sits down across from her and waits. She can see the girl is terrified, and she wants nothing more than to brush this child's long cornsilk hair and rub soothing circles into her shoulder. Instead she sits on her hands, stifling the urges.

"She's mine," Dean said five minutes ago, shivering on her doorstep, and Anna blinked and took in the girl's frightened eyes, eyes a much darker green than Dean's, almost black, but the soft curves of her face are all her father's, and now for a moment there's this weird fantasy in Anna's head, her and Dean looking out for this girl together, teaching her how to be monster and human at the same time- Anna getting to be a mother again-

Impossible dreams don't do anything but hurt. She stands up, says, "I'll be back in a minute, okay?", waits for Emma's hesitant nod before walking into the kitchen, where Dean is sitting at the small white table staring into a glass of water. Anna keeps beer in the fridge for when she has human guests, and she knows Dean's not shy about rifling through other people's pantries, and yet he's gone for water. Anna could take this as a hopeful sign, or she could take it as yet another symptom of spiritual exhaustion.

She pulls out a chair, settles down across from him, knees crossed, one foot absentmindedly kicking at a chair leg. "Talk to me," she says, tries to soften it from a demand to a suggestion. "She won't, so you're going to have to."

Dean raises his head, and there's nothing but confused despair on his face. He mumbles an explanation of sorts. "She hasn't hurt anyone yet," he says, and Anna wonders if he's trying to convince himself as much as he's trying to convince her. "I dunno- God, I don't freaking know if she meant it when she said she wanted a normal life, but I-" He stops, swallows. "I wanna give her the chance," he finishes.

Anna remembers her fantasy again. She remembers that one kiss, three years ago, clumsy and quickly aborted, Dean saying, _I can't, you're wearing a dead woman's clothes,_ tries to believe in the possibility of a happy ending. A demon and a hunter and an Amazon teenager playing house in a one-bed apartment. Why not? Why couldn't it work? The two of them have lost so much. They've lost Cas and they've lost Ruby and they're in the process of losing Sam, however much Dean wants to deny it. Maybe if Anna just figured out the right way to put it, maybe she could find the right words and Dean would stay, would smile for real, would stop hurtling himself towards oblivion. She's sick of being the strong one. She can't do this on her own, can't stay human without the people who make it worth it.

In the end, all she says is, "She can stay here as long as she needs to," and wishes the relief on his face didn't hurt so much.

He gets up to go and she has to make one last attempt, can't let him leave without having even tried, so she snags his coat sleeve, tugs gently. "It's late and it's raining," she says. "You should crash here for the night."

"I left Sam in Nevada," of course, it's always Sam, but she pushes, says, "He'll be fine on his own for a few hours," even though they both know that's a lie.

"Okay," he says, covers his face with shaking hands, "okay."

She reaches to pull him into a hug but he flinches and she stops. "Sorry," he mutters, "it's- it's been a fucked up few days, all right." Anna thinks about the girl in the other room and where she must have come from, how informed consent can't have figured on that map.

"Come on," she says, and they go into the bedroom. Dean takes one look at Emma in her new pyjamas and heads straight for the wall, starts unfolding the couch. Anna settles down into the fifty-buck armchair. "You get the bed, Emma," she says.

Emma blinks. "What about you, Miss Milton?" she asks, and her voice is so high and small, and she really is just a kid, isn't she. Looks about- what, fourteen, fifteen? Anna's not so good with children's ages, but she knows the girl doesn't look old enough to buy a beer. But she doesn't have a decade and change's experience dealing with this torturous thing called life, and she's obviously terrified. Emma is clearly putting a lot of effort into maintaining a human face, a smart girl who knows her survival will often be conditional on the state of her apparent humanity. Anna thinks about telling her not to bother. Surfaces don't mean much to a demon.

"I don't feel like sleeping," Anna says. She isn't going to explain the demon thing to Emma just yet, won't flash her black eyes. The kid might appreciate knowing she's not the only monster trying to stay clean, but right now Anna imagines it would only cause more panic. "I've got a lot of work to get done, and I'm an insomniac anyway." She flashes Emma a smile, and pulls out her laptop. Sam's Skype icon is green, but he isn't saying anything. She imagines him staring at the screen, unable to put his emotions into words.

Both her guests are beyond worn out. Anna flicks out the overhead light with an idle thought, and ten minutes later the two of them are fast asleep. It's been too long since Anna's apartment was full of the snoring, sleep-breathing noises of the living. Anna closes her eyes against the laptop's glare, and begins her nightly ritual. Perhaps the most absurd thing of all: a demon praying every evening to a dead angel. Hoping against hope that the message will somehow get through.

 

 

_Dear Ruby,_

_Sam's okay. As okay as he can be under the circumstances, anyway. Dean and I are still looking after him, so... you don't have to worry, all right?_   
_Dean has a daughter now. An Amazon. I want to say you'd like her, but maybe you'd take one look at the kid and smite her. I'm hoping she has a good heart. I'm hoping we can give her a better life than the one she was handed._

_If Cas is with you, wherever you are, tell him we miss him. Dean misses him a great deal. I'm starting to think Cas missed out on a good thing there. Our fault, I suppose._

_We miss you too, Ruby. I miss you. I need you here. I can't do this alone._

_Love,_

_the only demon on the planet dumb enough to keep doing this_

_come back, Ruby, please._

 

 

It stops raining around two AM. She goes out for a walk a little after three and when she comes back Dean's gone, along with the beer. It's not unexpected, but it still hits like a physical blow. She's tired. Every day she wakes up and says to herself, all the emotions, even the bad ones- but it's taking longer and longer for her to believe it each time, and that terrifies her more than she'd admit to anyone alive.

Emma doesn't leave. The sun rises high and she's still there, curled up under the quilt, dead to the world. Anna's not surprised. Such accelerated growth exhausts even supernaturally enhanced bodies.

She remembers running into Amazons now and then throughout the centuries. She remembers she used to think it was fun, helping them take down their fathers, watching the girls rip the men to shreds and then taking them out for a wild night on the town afterwards. The fun was in corrupting those sweet innocent little baby monsters, tearing them down into killers as dark as any demon. Anna shudders. She goes to make tea. She likes tea, as long as it doesn't contain any of the herbs that are dangerous for her, and the ritual of it is soothing.

Emma opens her eyes at midday. The sun is streaming through the thin curtains, lighting motes of dust above the bed. Anna meets her gaze. "There's a raw steak in the fridge," she says. "It should help the hunger, for now."

The girl hesitates. "Go on," Anna tells her. "You just went through sixteen years of growth in twenty-four hours. Your cells need fuel."

When Emma speaks, her voice is thick with sleep. "Where's my dad?"

Anna sighs. "He had to leave. I'm sorry. But I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. I thought you could eat something, and then we could discuss your future."

When she wrinkles her brow she looks so much like her father that Anna has to look down at her laptop screen again.

"Why are you helping me? You don't even know me."

The corners of Anna's mouth lift in a smile. One of those quirks of reflex inherited with this dead woman's body. "That's what people do, Emma. We help each other out." She taps absently on the shift key with her smallest finger. "That's how we know we're people."

 

 

_Dear Ruby,_

_I have high hopes for Emma. She really does seem willing to try. Unfortunately, I'm not able to send her to school, although that might be a good thing- the less tasty humans around the better, probably. She does have a legal identity as Emma Morgan- I'll say this for the Amazons, they're good with their paperwork- but I don't want her tied to that, in case her family comes to track her down. I downloaded a lot of educational computer programs and she's learning fast. I want her to be able to work freelance online jobs. She has to have a way to live on her own. Independence is important._

_It's nice having someone else around. I thought we'd have a hard time fitting in this shoe box, but she's very unobtrusive._

_Haven't heard from Sam or Dean today, but I'm sure they're fine._

_Love,_

_someone who'd really like to hear back from you one of these days_

 

 

She formats the prayers in her head like emails sent to nobody. Maybe prayers really are like celestial post, and hers are just getting stamped Return to Sender. Maybe they're just floating out into the ether. Maybe there's some lonely angel out there, a survivor of apocalypse and civil war and purge and fire, sitting on a cloud catching Anna's prayers as they stream by, listening and wondering that anyone is still praying to a dead god of wrath and destruction.

Emma stays quiet. If Anna was hoping for her to blossom, start bitching and whining, begin to relax a little, those hopes are not realized. Emma takes the sack of dirty clothes down to the laundromat, brings them back clean, folds them neatly in perfect stacks on the bed. She eats her steaks like a starving animal but never asks for a second serving, just sits at the table sucking on her fingers to make sure she doesn't miss out on a single drop of blood.

 

 

_Dear Ruby,_

_Denying your nature. That's the real issue, isn't it? Emma tells me she hasn't stopped dreaming about murdering Dean Winchester. I'm almost jealous. I wish I could remember what dreaming was like. It's hard, Ruby. Yeah, yeah, whine whine. I knew what I was signing up for when I chose this whole reformed demon thing. But it seems like every day, things are just a little bit worse, and the anger's still there, underneath, festering, just waiting for a chance. The anger and the bloodlust and worst of all, the beautiful freedom of amorality._

_I've been thinking of you, and how you picked up humanity so fast. Three thousand years away from Earth, then you're here a few months in the body of a devout Target employee and you're acting like the rest of them. Using human idioms and throwing sarcasm everywhere and eating all those french fries. It took me a while to figure out that you hadn't actually become human at all, hadn't changed your nature. You're just very, very good at taking on a role. Did you actually feel those messy human emotions, or were you just acting so that-_

_When you opened the door to Purgatory, were you still the same angel who pulled Dean Winchester out of Hell?_

_Love,_

_the soul you didn't save_

_please come back_

_please_

_please_

 

"You're a monster too, aren't you." Emma's trying to sound assertive, but Anna can hear the waver in her voice. She isn't quite sure, not yet. She's taken to sniffing loudly at the air when Anna is around, trying to parse what her inhuman senses are trying to tell her.

Anna doesn't look up from her book. "Did you get everything on the grocery list?"

"Yeah," Emma says, "and I don't even know what the hell for. You don't really need to eat, right? And I can't stand anything that's not red meat. So why do you have me wasting time and money buying pretentious boxes of tea and instant macaroni?"

"I don't need to eat," Anna says, closing her book. "That doesn't mean I can't enjoy it."

Emma shakes her head. "Whatever," she says, dripping disdain, and Anna has to stifle an urge to laugh with joy because for the first time she's acting just like any other teenager mouthing off to an irritating guardian.

"Well," she says instead, "I can't fault your detective skills," and she lets her eyes flicker into blackness.

Emma startles. Anna watches the skin beneath her eyes flush an unhealthy red, her irises glow yellow and the bones shift beneath her skin. They're a matched pair, the two of them, hiding their eyes from the world, hiding their full strength and denying the hungering parts of themselves that constantly fight to break loose. She watches Emma struggle's, the girl's screaming instinct pulling her back and forth between darting for the door and going for Anna's throat. Emma stares. Anna smiles, and turns away.

She fries up some bacon strips for her growing monster girl. The cooking process is soothing. Some things stay more or elss the same, over the centuries. Frying pans always stayed just as they were even as the rest of human life became unrecognizable.

Just as she did the first morning, Emma inquires, "Why are you helping me?"

"Because I'm lonely," Anna says. The plate of bacon makes a small clinking noise as she sets it down on the table. "Eat your breakfast."

 

  
_I never got to tell you- and I can't even seem to say it now-_

_come back. be my anchor. be the light that keeps me from the darkness._

_love isn't enough. family isn't enough. guilt sure as hell isn't enough. I need faith. I need-_

What she needs is to stop this. What she needs is to let the past go.

In the bedroom, Emma is sobbing in her sleep.

There's a soft noise from her laptop.

**anna? you there?**

**Sam?** She types slowly, tentatively.

A pause before the next words appear. **no its dean. sams not doing so well.**

Anna feels the muscles in her stolen body tighten with anxiety.

**I'm sorry to hear that.**

**yeah well. i heard about this faith healer, supposed to be the real deal. im at her house now.**

**Dean Winchester went to a faith healer?**

**i got desperate.**

Anna rubs her eyes, though there's no blur or ache. A very old habit, carried all the way from the body she was born in.

**What do you want me to do?**

There's a very long pause. Anna watches the little dots move as Dean presumably types an answer and then deletes it. She gets up, retrieves her mug of cold, stewed tea from the countertop, zaps it in the microwave for thirty seconds. She gets back to the laptop and there's still no response.

But a few seconds after she resettles herself in the chair, the laptop chimes again.

**nothing, sorry. was going to ask you to come down here but youve got emma so thats a stupid idea. but can i ask you to look after sam if we dont make it? dont let him die. ill text you the address of the hospital.**

**Of course. Anything.**

The next pause is much shorter.

**thanks anna. i mean it. youre a good friend. call you later.**

That's it. The dot besides the goofy picture of Sam changes from green to orange. He's gone. Anna closes the laptop.

When Emma wrestles her way into wakefulness several hours later, Anna's still sitting there, still and quiet, just gazing into the darkness, her eyes inscrutable holes in the fabric of the universe. Emma wonders what she's thinking about. What she's regretting.

Like every morning, Emma considers killing her. Like every morning, she decides not to. She wanders into the kitchen area. She's hungry as always. Her stomach is growling. Her fangs drag along the tender insides of her cheeks and she stastes blood and shivers.

She pries open the kitchen window and breathes in air that smells like rain and smoke. There are coal gray cloudbanks over the mountains. There's another storm coming. Emma smiles.


End file.
